The Trac-trac Project.
I always wanted to do my own Photo-Project (I did a couple of shots for Valentine’s day, but I couldn’t call them a project).
There is this little city next to my hometown and I had the opportunity to shoot some people there during a religious event some weekends ago. I made only candid shots while people were praying, that’s why – at least in these first photos – I couldn’t ask them to pose or ask for permission to register their moment with their own god and faith.
It could not fit for the “100 Strangers” project (because they’re candids)… So I’ve decided to name it my Trac-trac project.
The project was named after a song called “Trac Trac” played by Os Paralamas do Sucesso, my favourite Brazilian band. Ever. I can’t even mention what is all that song about… too strong words I would say. It was originally written by Fito Paez and the original music video shows the reality in a mental hospital where a suicide leads his life to an end after an unsucessful love-story. The Paralamas’ version has a different rhythm and it also looks different at the lyrics though the music video. It’s hard for me to explain why I decided to name my photoshoot after this song, but when I came up with all those photos they gave me the same feeling the song does. Even though my photos are not about the kind of love Paez talks about in his song I felt like they were linked somehow.
By that time I only knew the song by Paralamas, I mean, I haven’t seen the music video by the time I named my project. When I saw the video on youtube the penny suddenly dropped. In the Paralamas’ video they don’t focus as much in the suicide point of view, but instead, on random people. Just like my project! Unbelievable.
If you speak Portuguese you can read the lyrics here. If you don’t understand Portuguese you can feel the song and everything I’m talking about listening to it here.
To see The Trac-trac project on Flickr, you can click HERE.
